PREP BASEBALL: Hawks able to reload, not rebuild in 2016

Pohlman hoping to return as Carrollton coach

Louie Korac, For The Telegraph

Published
3:54 pm CDT, Monday, May 30, 2016

Kolten Bottom delivers a pitch during his start against Okawville in the Carlinville Class 2A Sectional semifinals on Friday at Blackburn College. Bottom took the loss, but finished the season with a 9-2 record. less

Kolten Bottom delivers a pitch during his start against Okawville in the Carlinville Class 2A Sectional semifinals on Friday at Blackburn College. Bottom took the loss, but finished the season with a 9-2 ... more

Photo: Dennis Mathes / Journal-Courier

Photo: Dennis Mathes / Journal-Courier

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Kolten Bottom delivers a pitch during his start against Okawville in the Carlinville Class 2A Sectional semifinals on Friday at Blackburn College. Bottom took the loss, but finished the season with a 9-2 record. less

Kolten Bottom delivers a pitch during his start against Okawville in the Carlinville Class 2A Sectional semifinals on Friday at Blackburn College. Bottom took the loss, but finished the season with a 9-2 ... more

Photo: Dennis Mathes / Journal-Courier

PREP BASEBALL: Hawks able to reload, not rebuild in 2016

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CARLINVILLE — Greg Pohlman stood in front of select reporters following a 3-0 loss in the sectional semifinals against Okawville on Friday and naturally, his voice began to crack.

The Carrollton baseball coach, just finishing his 29th season with a 536-292-3 record and a 2011 state championship, obviously showed no signs of wanting to hang it up just yet.

Pohlman, who served as athletics director and teacher at the high school and past football coach, is retiring from his duties as AD and teacher but would like to continue his love of coaching baseball.

And why wouldn’t he?

The Hawks, who just wrapped up a 27-6 season, the most victories since they went 31-1-1 in winning a state title five years ago, had a roster of 16 in 2016, 11 of them either freshmen or sophomores and seven of them were in the starting lineup Friday. Only senior Jacob Lovel and junior Jeremy Watson were the exceptions.

“This is a group, when you have so many sophomores and freshmen starting, they think we’ll just have a rebuilding year,” Pohlman said. “Well, we did rebuild, but we reloaded (too) and they gave it everything they had.”

The top four hitters in the lineup (Alex Bowker, Nathan Walker, Kolten Bottom and Hayden Stringer) accounted for that freshmen-sophomore mix. This will be a good baseball team for the next couple seasons with everyone but three (Ben DeWitt, Lovel and Cole Brannan, who was expelled from the team at the end of the regular season for disciplinary reasons) returning.

“This was a young team but not one overwhelmed by anything,” Pohlman said. “I had a great time working with these kids. They gave me everything.”

It just wasn’t enough against the Rockets, who eliminated Carrollton for the second straight season at the sectional level.

The Rockets, who beat Carrollton 3-2 last year in the sectional championship game, had a workhorse on the mound in senior Brendan Killion that was not to be denied on the mound, and the Hawks hitters, who did hit a few balls right on the button with no success, couldn’t dent the scoreboard against the University of Missouri-Rolla bound Killion.

“We knew what he was going to bring,” Pohlman said of Killion, who struck out 10 in a two-hit shutout. “Whoever made the fewest mistakes was going to win. It’s just like any other sport.

“I really had a great feeling when I came over here today. I thought, ‘Well, we’ve seen fast pitching like this before and we hit it. We’re going to come out on top, get them scared.’ But you know, that’s just baseball. That’s why everybody plays three- and four-game series.”

Bottom, who took the loss despite allowing only one earned run with no walks and six strikeouts, was 9-2 in a sophomore season (he came in with a 0.96 ERA), and coupled with sophomore Blake Struble (6-1, 1.92 ERA) and freshman Gabe Jones (4-1, 2.00 ERA), it’s a solid three-punch pitching staff to start with heading into 2017.